Peter Howson served with the Royal Army Chaplains’ Department in Germany from 1977 to 1997 and has published three books about British army chaplains in World War One. In his most recent book, Britain and the German Churches 1945–1950: The Role of the Religious Affairs Branch in the British Zone, he examines the Religious Affairs Branch of British military government in occupied Germany after World War Two.
In contrast to claims that the British had “no considered policy at all” toward the German churches, Howson suggests that “there was a plan” to restore religious freedom (255–56). Yet that does not constitute a coherent policy, and relevant draft directives and policy instructions warrant more systematic discussion than they receive. Howson indicates tensions in British thinking. Some, like Commander-in-Chief Field-Marshal Bernard Montgomery, believed that “the German churches can play a great part in the reconstruction of Germany” and that the British should “encourage” and “help” them (49). Others, like permanent secretary of the Control Office for Germany and Austria, Sir Arthur Street, argued that the British role was “not to foster religious worship” but merely “to foster freedom of worship” (86). British church leaders unsurprisingly favored Montgomery's position and played decisive roles in the history of the Religious Affairs Branch.
In chapter 1, Howson places the creation of a Religious Affairs staff in the context of occupation policy, the establishment of military government, and the presence of army chaplains. The latter's roles are the focus of chapter 2, particularly plans for them to liaise between military government and the German churches. Despite some cooperation, such plans were largely abandoned. In chapter 3, Howson recounts chaplains’ and others’ experiences in Germany in summer 1945.
Initially, Religious Affairs was a section within the Education and Religious Affairs Branch of the Internal Affairs and Communications Division of the Control Commission for Germany (British Element). Largely thanks to the advocacy of George Bell, bishop of Chichester, and Geoffrey Fisher, archbishop of Canterbury, it became a separate branch in January 1946, which, as Howson shows in chapter 4, was something that made the British unique among the occupying powers. Bell and Fischer were also involved in selecting its directors, the last of whom, Major General Sidney Archibald, felt he was serving “two masters”: the Control Commission and the church (227). This “most peculiar of civil service units” (228) achieved considerable ecumenical harmony, although some Protestants were unhappy at having a Catholic, Colonel R. L. Sedgwick, as its first director. Most branch staff, including the directors, were not ordained, but most heads of its three main sections—for the Catholic church, the Evangelical (Protestant) churches, and minor denominations in Germany—were.
In chapters 5 to 7, Howson examines the relationships between the British and those three groups in turn, largely through the lens of surviving Religious Affairs Branch records. The minor denominations section dealt with scores of disparate groups, including Methodists, the Salvation Army, and the surviving German Jewish community. The branch's role here frequently did not go beyond monitoring developments and providing some practical help. At lower levels, British Catholics found relationships with their German co-religionists easier than British Protestants did with theirs, not least due to the shared Latin mass and sense of belonging to a single universal church. But Howson stresses the difficult relations with the German episcopate. The archbishop of Cologne, Josef Frings, and the bishop of Münster, Clemens August von Galen, felt disappointed by British treatment of them and British occupation policy and were outspoken in their criticism. This was exacerbated by poor British management of their trip to Rome for their cardinal nomination in early 1946.
If relations with the Catholic Church also suffered because of ecclesiastical disinclination to denazify, this became an even more protracted problem with the Evangelical churches due to the refusal of the Lutheran bishop of Hanover, August Marahrens, to resign. Whereas most postwar Evangelical leaders had belonged to the Confessing Church, Marahrens had opposed the latter and had, in the British view, been excessively supportive of Hitler. Howson highlights “stark” differences over what to do (165). Some argued for Marahrens's removal but others, including some in Religious Affairs, argued against interfering in internal church matters.
This conflict highlights two distinctions that Howson might have made more of. The first is that between freedom of worship and the autonomy of religious institutions, which he occasionally conflates. Everyone was committed wholeheartedly to the former and at least in principle to the latter. But the point of Religious Affairs was never only observation and facilitation: the goal was also to influence the German churches. The second distinction is that between National Socialism and nationalism. Those who opposed Marahrens's removal insisted “He was not a Nazi” (163). Yet Howson shows that the British did not have only Nazis in their sights. As Montgomery noted, particularly among anti-Nazi churchmen there were “unrepentant nationalists” who were “potentially dangerous to us” (84). Such concerns were often overlooked by Germans at the time and warrant greater recognition in the literature.
In chapters 8 and 9, Howson examines two important roles played by the Religious Affairs Branch: facilitating visits to Germany by British religious leaders, which helped reestablish relations more quickly than after World War One; and representing Britain on the Religious Affairs Committee of the Allied Control Authority in Berlin, where cooperation was overshadowed by differences on key questions. Howson might have done more here to elucidate the specificity of, and tensions within, British positions. In chapter 10, he examines the final year of the branch's existence, 1949–50, including the question of whether and how aspects of its role might continue once the Control Commission was wound down.
Howson acknowledges that he does not explore all aspects of the branch's work, including its youth section. That he does not say more about its handling of the Nazi-Protestant “German Christians” or of spiritual welfare in British civilian internment camps is surprising. The book would have benefited from stringent editing. Readers may find detailed recounting of organizational matters excessive. Specialists will find much that is familiar and may wish for more engagement with historiographical debate and the bigger picture. It is nevertheless a worthwhile addition to the literature.
